Board 8 > [VGMC] Video Game Music Contest Nomination Topic 3 -- Discussion Overflow

(+) Yeah! (+)

- Phantasy Star Online 2 | BATALLURA | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjD16DnkI-8
+ Devil Engine | Jazzy NNYC | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRfavUmqFcc

- A Hat in Time | Rush Hour | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXBcBugpHZg
+ Super Smash Bros. Brawl | Snowman | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1Md2ODg-0M
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+ Etrian Odyssey Nexus | The First Campaign | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU76ObF-zZ0

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+ 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim | -[Deoxyribose]- | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlmYYyzek48
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+ Blue Reflection | TIGAR (All Phase Mix) | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9-NsUPcFFU

Doubling this in a last-ditch effort

+ Ao no Kiseki Evolution | Aoki Negai |https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L59S0WDwZ8M

THANK YOU EVERYONE AND THAT IS TIME!!!

10:00 has arrived, and that means the deadline has arrived. I will not be accepting any additional nominations after this post.

As of this time I am updating the spreadsheet and preparing to announce where the cut-off for song #192 is. After that, I will need a bit of time for deciding the tiebreakers. Things are going a little differently this year, and although I'm not going to publicly disclose all the details, some executive decisions are going to be made to attempt to give everyone at least a modest number of songs they wanted in the bracket. (After that, it'll be pure random like usual.) I promise to have these decisions made before bed.

Thank you for your patience.

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- jubeat | Icicles | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDfj4ASy6sc
+ Devil Engine | Jazzy NNYC | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRfavUmqFcc

Arti posted...

just like any mafia game d1

##dayvig: The Best Is Yet To Come

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- SOUND VOLTEX VIVID WAVE | Sudden Visitor | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeyT21F3u1s
+ Blue Reflection | TIGAR (All Phase Mix) | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9-NsUPcFFU

SORRY XP

Damnit my computer was freezing up, couldn't get my de-nom together to nom Brain Power in time.

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xp1337 posted...

##dayvig: The Best Is Yet To Come

you were 12 seconds too late

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dang, guess locks were ever so slightly more worth it than waiting

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I'm extremely thankful for the early locks. Please keep them in, whoever is insane enough to host this next time!

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Oh good, Brain Power got the noms it needed without my help; Snowman got the last second nom it needed, and icicles got a late nom and the de-nom from someone giving up on it was two seconds too late. I think I probably got 19/20 songs in?

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...Or not. Holy crap, 4/4 is outright out?!

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banshiryuu posted...

SORRY XP

it's probably okay. it ended at 5/4.

and it's partly my fault for waiting that long, though it did help me narrow down where my last second doubles were going. Thermal Base 1 was on there but it got 2 boosts in the last minutes so I was able to prioritize elsewhere.

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TsunamiXXVIII posted...

...Or not. Holy crap, 4/4 is outright out?!

It was pretty clear to me this afternoon it would be!

I only started to doubt it when the rush didn't start quite as early as I expected, but it came through in the end after all.

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I have 14 songs in and 2 more in the lottery. I'm sure this means the lottery will be kind to me. >_>
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Yeah I think the rush was smaller because the lock deadline meant half the consolidation happened on Friday
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TsunamiXXVIII posted...

Don't do this to me! I don't even think Giratina's that great; I just nommed it to try to get it in.

DragonImps posted...

u_u

I wasnt trying to criticize anything here btw, I was just reacting to I dont even think Giratinas that great.

...*Looks at Spreadsheet*

Wait, Thermal Base 1 is 4/3?

ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

I was sure it was 3/3 before the rush started and saw 2+'s for it! ...Did I miss a drop? Oh god I'm so sorry if so.

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I'm just going to be unhappy if the one I pulled because I figured 5/3 would be safe ends up missing out.

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yo azuarc. Looking at the spreadsheet I don't think it picked up UF8's Post at 140. Among others it contained a nom for Freedom Planet - Thermal Base 1 that I don't see reflected in the sheet. It would bring it to 5/4. Too tired to check the other noms in that post.

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Wait

It's only 8:00 PM right here, lol.

Anyway, Rustling Throb ~Cloche~ is in and that's all that matters to me right now.

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The Discord is saying there's problems with everything after (and including) the UF8 post and I think azuarc is already looking into it.
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discord isn't real

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xp1337 posted...

discord isn't real

are you sure it isn't real? maybe you're not real

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I've been having these weird thoughts lately.
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Arti posted...

are you sure it isn't real? maybe you're not real

Discord isn't real. It's only your parents in disguise.

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The Thermal Base issue was resolved. I don't know if it was my error or something else, but posts after UF8's on that page didn't get counted. After fixing that, we added another 5 songs to the field, which leaves only one bubble slot for 11 songs that are 5/3 and unlocked.

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Damnit, it's looking ugly.

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Ah, so that's what that means. Damnit, could've destroyed the bubble entirely if I weren't such an idiot.

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...Okay, fair enough. I was kicking myself for dropping Marnie because I thought 5/3 would be safe, but it turns out that the one song that bubbled in was the one (unlocked) 5/3 that I still was supporting. So I think that puts me at 17/20 songs in the bracket.

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Brain Power from 0/0 to 6/3 in 3 minutes 20 seconds, special thanks to Janus and lefty

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I don't like how the nomination phase was radically altered this year, but it resulted in the same thing for me. The final hours screw me over, and I lost a song in the final cut phase.
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It worked well for me. Though I still can't believe that there was a 1-in-11 chance on the bubble and my only song on the bubble actually got in (though I actually had a 2-in-11 chance of getting something I wanted in in, because I stupidly figured that the bubble would be 4/4 instead of 5/3.)

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Which 5-3 made the cut?
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another winter

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[

Yeah. Even though it's one I supported and I'm happy it's in, it kind of sucks that the one bubble spot went to a returner.

Then again, I was surprised when I saw it nominated because I could've sworn it had retired. I realize now what I was thinking of--one of those silly "bonus polls" that azuarc often puts in the opening posts of the voting topics had a bunch of winter-themed songs, Another Winter among them...along with Winterbliss, which is retired. Even though Race Around the World is by far the better Castle Crashers song.

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Sorry, I realize I told folks in Discord who were waiting with bated breath, but I haven't made a post here.

The field has been decided. As noted, the lone survivor of the bubble was Another Winter. The entire field can be found under its tab in the spreadsheet. I will now be listening through the new inclusions to the field in preparation for bracket placement. I will let you know when there is an update.

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I'm quite satisfied with how everything turned out. I would have been happy with just Undersea Palace & Return to Oblivion making it--the former being what I assume is the most mainstream of my personal favorite VGM and Return to Oblivion being my favorite discovery out of everything nominated this time.

I actually got quite a few songs to make it in and most of the songs I just barely didn't support got in anyway--I was so close to jumping onto B.T. Dutch, PROGRAM, or Mechalullaby--that I can't even be remotely disappointed about anything that didn't make it in.
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snake eater and blooming villain made it woo!

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Fell asleep before I could use my remaining votes. Unfortunate.
However, I'm still very much satisfied with the results. The tracks chosen seem pretty diverse, and a good number of the ones I supported made it in.

Thank you for all the efforts you've made to hold the nomination phase of this contest, azuarc.

I appreciate the outpouring of support from everyone.

So now that nominations are over, what's the verdict on locking tracks? During the process, it felt like the reaction was generally favorable, but we still had a rush at the end. If we had to do over again, would you
A) determine all songs by lock (and some deadline)
B) do zero locks and just live and die by the rush
C) the split method we had this year

And is there anything else you'd change? 5 felt like the right number to me, and other than that we crowded out a few 5/3s at the end as a result, I think things turned out okay. I've gotten grumbles from a couple people about things that locking neither causes nor discourages, but not much bitterness toward locking itself.

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I like the idea of everything being locked up to a certain deadline, but I'm not really opposed to any of those three methods.

I also recommend handling future tiebreaks by giving priority to songs that reached their nomination level earliest (e.g. a song that hits 4/4 in the first hour and stays there would be guaranteed to make it over a song that only reaches 4/4 in the final hour). That way you have absolutely no uncertainty about the methodology used, and everyone knows precisely how safe any given nomination is.
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I was 20/20 so I'd say it worked out well for me, although all my noms were supports.

With locks, it means that the last hour rush was basically the same practice as usual, but with a smaller field (since some spots were already taken). That's not necessarily bad (except for people who already disliked the rush period to begin with, then locks didn't solve anything). But it worked out fine I think. If it stays the same, the one thing that I'd want is more clarity for locked songs on the spreadsheet, on every page, so it's easier to see which songs are still in the running at a glance, without having to cross reference a single tab every time.

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New links for:
Deltarune - Rude Buster (loops properly, with fadeout)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_k0qYU29K0U

Final Fantasy IV - Fight 2
This link is better quality than the supplied one, but it doesn't loop (the OST doesn't loop, so it's likely to be a rip from that):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cJe5v5lLKk

Alternately, this is probably as high quality as you can get for SNES and it loops, but there's no fadeout - it ends abruptly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnP7JCDExDg

Metal Gear Solid 3 - Snake Eater (better quality)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVPaaiL_iLw

Pokemon Platinum - Battle! Giratina (loops properly)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfFqkIsn88U

Pokemon Sword/Shield - Battle Tower (loops once)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJz38uxBN1U

Ratchet & Clank - Metropolis ~ Kerwan (better quality)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kvb-0ODln14

Naming stuff:
- Atelier Ayesha is listed two different ways, once with the subtitle (The Alchemist of Dusk) and once without.
- Mr. Driller should be Mr. Driller: Drill Land.
- Some of the Pokemon games have "and"s, some have slashes. (Black 2 and White 2 vs. Diamond/Pearl/Platinum)
- Pretty sure The Legend of Zelda - Main Theme is called Title.

Locking definitely feels ideal for making the nomination process more accessible to everyone. Instead of working with a moving cutoff that could get as high as people want it to, you have a concrete notion of "safe" to work towards. I personally didn't use any of my votes to secure locks because I was greedy for a under-5 final cutoff. Still, things worked out really well for my songs thanks to lots of last-minute supports, but it could easily have gone the other way and I'd be spamming all-caps messages in Discord.

I think locking is completely separate from the concept of a deadline, which is what I really think causes all the stress and secret crafting of plans. Everyone waits on everyone else to finish spending their unused supports or give up on their 1/1's, but they want to give them more time to listen through the playlist/figure out their supports, but maybe they're already set and waiting for you to make a move, but you don't want to give up hope on your songs just yet, but maybe they're thinking the same thing, but you want to optimize the efficiency of your votes...

I'd like to see us double down on a deadline-less system, which early locks kind of do by letting 5's in regardless of when they hit their milestone, but they still had to happen by Friday and left a second deadline for Sunday. You could actually just let the first 192 songs to reach 5/x into the bracket, maybe after an initial listening period so the early listeners with free time don't decide everything. Or at least lock the first 160 or so, with the remaining 32 taken from the top-voted songs by a deadline. That would be similar to this year, but there's only one deadline based around silly mindgames instead of two, and it's only to decide the minority of the field.

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